On Tue, 20 Dec 2005, David Gerard wrote:
Geoff Burling wrote:
(And for the record, when I find an article with more than one stub tag attached, I always reduce the number to one. Don't like it? Then turn the stub into an article, & we'll both be happy.)
PLEASE DON'T DO THIS. Different stubs are subcategories of different parent categories. Someone from a wikiproject about content will often go into that project's stub category and start work on stuff they find there.
Are you serious? To repeat myself, how many stub notices does Wikipedia need on any given article? This is the silliest idea I've seen proposed here -- including many I have proposed -- for these & probably many more reasons:
-- having multiple stubs looks ugly -- multiple stub notices gives the impression that we don't value the intelligence of our readers (viz., "Hey, this is a stub, & I'm warning you that you might not find all of the information you expect here! Hey, this is a stub, & you might not find all of the information you expect here! Hey, this is a stub, & you might not find all of the information you expect here!" Some of us get the message the first time it's said.) -- just how many people actually look for stubs in their area of interest? I've seen anecdotal evidence that few people bother to chase down stubs. (When I am on the hunt for a topic to work on, I'm as just as likely to look under the more broad categories as under the stubs.) -- this confuses meta-information (which should be on the Talk page) with warnings to the reader (which should be on the article page) I believe this falls under the category of "instruction creep". If an there is a reason an article needs more than one stub notice, then shouldn't they go on the talk page?
And last, & perhaps most important: -- just exactly when was this policy dreamed up, debated, & voted on? I I believe this is one of those situations where the Wikipedia directive [[ignore all rules]] applies & AFAIK, this isn't even a rule.
Until reducing multiple stubs becomes a bannible offence, I will continue to do it, based on my editorial discression. you have been warned.
[snip]
When I used to do New Article Patrol on a regular basis, I found myself wikifying new articles, rather than tagging them for deletion. (Despite the kill-happy reputation of AfD, I found it far easier to subject these articles to a scrubbing than listing them.) Then I saw David Gerard's comment about 90% of new articles were dreck, & started to suspect my own judgement. So I lost interest in that chore.*
I didn't say 90%, I said 20-30%!
You're right. I went back & checked my log of Wiki-EN mail, & I misremembered the figure. (I'm amazed, though, at how many people threw around "90%" when talking about issues.) I sincerely apologize.
Geoff